this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2025
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[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 88 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

This is one of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard in my life.

In particular if I am online and neurotypical toxic people are thrown off by my ADHD, the VERY FIRST THING they do in their intellectual laziness is assume I am a kid.

The idea that this isn't considered an explicit oppression of neurodivergent adults is laughable to me. These systems will police for neurodivergence, not age. The obvious response from the center will be "just don't act like a kid then" and I would like to send a pre-emptive "go fuck yourself you are destroying everything" to those people.

[–] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 day ago

I am autistic and like 60% of my watchtime is Minecraft smp.

I no longer have an account to proof my age, i download subscriptions using yt-dlp

I hope all the advanced science videos i am downloading somehow balance it out.

chuckles i am in line to get oppressed.

[–] dabaldeagul@feddit.nl 4 points 1 day ago

I am autistic and have ADHD (inattentive, aka ADD), and when I was 13 people estimated my age in the mid 40s lmao

And yeah now I'm the opposite, feeling more free to just ramble and stuff, without spending tons upon tons of energy to keep my attention with the conversation. So will I spend 50% of my time making points completely irrelevant to the conversation? Yeah. But I'm happier for it :)

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[–] Fandangalo@lemmy.world 37 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Accounts used by multiple people enter the room.

By kids often use my account on our shared family TV. We have adults in 30s/40s, early teens, and toddlers all using YouTube for different things.

This is a stupid idea.

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I don't think big corp wants you account sharing. "Violates ToS" they say.

[–] Fandangalo@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

I don’t want ScreamingMinecraftYoutuber67 on my watch history, and yet, it’ll be there tomorrow morning.

/s

[–] foggenbooty@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

I don't want account sharing either, except theres things like Google homes where you can't sign in with more than one account. People sharing the same account in a TV aren't trying to, it's just the natural way they use it.

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[–] WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 28 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Youtube doesn't have the best history for this. One channel makes stop motion animations and showcases Transformers. It got marked as a children's channel. The channel went on to showcase Transformers doing lewd acts.

[–] IndiBrony@lemmy.world 23 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It annoys the shit out of me that they never made the "kids" section of youtube an entirely separate thing.

Like TV, they could curate the hell out of it and not just allow anyone to upload, but no, they instead made way too much money from elsagate videos and videos of kids swimming. Now that that's gone, it's now making money off of kids from AI slop.

[–] JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

It annoys the shit out of me that they never made the “kids” section of youtube an entirely separate thing.

That's exactly what they did. Ten years ago.
It's just that the FTC and COPPA force them to also mark anything that gets uploaded to regular Youtube and is "targeting" kids as such, because they aren't allowed to collect data from anyone under the age of 13.

[–] JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yeah, at one point Youtube in their wisdom decided that toys are for kids, so anything to do with them got forcefully marked as "for kids". I remember many LEGO and RC channels have issues with it. And having your video or channel marked as "for kids" disables 90% of Youtube features - comments, likes, notifications, saving videos to playlists or watch later, end cards etc.

Even then, Youtube basically has only two age ratings - either the content is suitable for everyone (but you do have to mark if it is specifically aimed at kids under 13), or it's age-restricted to adults only. Imagine if movies only had the options of "G" or "NC-17". But eh, in the end it is FTC and COPPA telling them what they have to do. The alternative is that you'd have to create an account and somehow age-verify that you are over the age of 13 before Youtube was allowed to show any videos.

[–] pleaseletmein@lemmy.zip 2 points 11 hours ago

I remember when they first rolled out the “made for kids” video designation, “Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared” (a horror video) was labeled as children’s content by the AI until enough actual users had pointed out the error on Twitter.

[–] db2@lemmy.world 25 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I've never made a single comment or video post so good luck.

[–] tidderuuf@lemmy.world 59 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I watch a lot of gun videos on YouTube so they will probably assume I'm in high school.

[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

or you’re about to go to a high school very soon!

[–] PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago

This comment has me in critical condition.

[–] kaitco@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

They will base it on the stuff you consume. Like 90% of people online lurk and don't comment anything

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 21 points 1 day ago

Cool, they poison their own tracking data.

[–] Not_mikey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I assume they already did this for advertising purposes, just like every other platform trying to guess your demographics to sell you more useless shit.

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[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I mean, I've heard of other sites using info like having a saved payment card in your own name, or the age of the account itself to know that the user is over 18 without needing ID.

But this is Google, they want to flex their analytics and get as much additional info on everyone as they can.

[–] gary@piefed.world 7 points 1 day ago

This was literally the first thing that came to mind. So many people have android phones with cards already linked to google, paying for YouTube premium would do the same thing. But nope, Skynet is the better way to do it

[–] Bebopalouie@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I am almost 70 and my wife and have a great time confusing the AI targeted ads. I get tampon ads she gets men’s diaper ads. We never know what we are going to get since we are always feeding misinformation into our phones.

[–] prex@aussie.zone 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Same same but different here. This algorithm was meant to know my wants better than me but all I get is ads for credit cards, adult diapers & hoodies.

[–] Bebopalouie@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

Spruce things up a bit. Talk in front front of your phone and say how much you always wanted a pet zebra or you want an auto car wash for your house. Stuff like that.

[–] joelfromaus@aussie.zone 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

YouTube popup: What is Tik Tok?

User: A song by Kesha.

YouTube: Alright, let ‘em through.

[–] Raiderkev@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

False, that song is clearly by Ke*$*ha

[–] JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Pfft, everyone knows it the Ukrainian entry in Moscow Eurovision (the one with the hamster wheel).

[–] Tylerdurdon@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (3 children)

How long before a certain orange moron starts complaining that it keeps thinking he's 13 for some reason?

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[–] Bonifratz@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I think my account is around 18 years old so let's see what the AI thinks.

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[–] veeesix@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I watch plenty of penguinz0, This Old House, Smosh, and lawn care videos. Can’t wait to find out what YouTube makes of that.

[–] crunchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 day ago

I've got a random living room account that's used for Gen alpha brain rot, 80s R&B music videos, video essays, nature live streams, kids shows, horror stories, and documentaries. good luck.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 2 points 1 day ago

I watch cartoons meant for kids. They're gonna think I'm 7.

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[–] tdawg@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They already do this. There was a way to check and there may still be. When I checked like 10 years ago it was wrong about everything. Age, hobbies, everything

So good luck yt I guess

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[–] ccunning@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

Is this why Google sent me an email saying they changed my settings and I can scan in my ID if I want to change them back?

What if you just play a bunch of home repair videos on the background? 🤔

[–] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 6 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

They'll be counting the wrinkies on my asshole.

[–] lemmyknow@lemmy.today 3 points 10 hours ago

When you log into YouTube, a patented recog device does read your anus to confirm your identity. Its CCDs convert light into text-based codes, which represent your unique fingerprint of anal terrain.

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[–] Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 5 points 1 day ago

The have been thoroughly unable to guess my age for the last 18 years.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 5 points 1 day ago

Im told the technology can also estimate shoe size and the relative realtion of the two!

[–] JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

It's going to be really hilarious if my account gets flagged by the AI.
I made it in 2004, it's old enough to drink.

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[–] altphoto@lemmy.today 3 points 1 day ago

Search.... Sponge Bob Ross hand painting practice.

[–] UncleGrandPa@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago

Start peppering your responses with archaic terms and slang.... Confuse the hell out of them

[–] JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

The system relies on signals such as the types of videos a user searches for and watches, and how long their account has been active, to determine whether they are under the age of 18.

That's not actually AI is it ?

[–] trashboat@midwest.social 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I’ve been wondering lately how effective a service would be that takes your credentials for a service, such as YouTube, and starts engaging with content at random so that the data the service has on you is all junk

Don’t know how meaningful something like this would even be, but if all these companies are gonna try so hard to collect data on me then I’d rather fill that data with useless junk

[–] Nightlight17776@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

With all the data they collect I wish they would target me with the right ads. I don't want an AI girlfriend, to buy a toyota in spanish, or comemeritive trump merch

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Using an ad blocker I get nothing but the types of ads I wanna see; Which is none at all. 😌

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